Yes and yes. The story where we're pursuing that balance is set 3000 years in the future, in a culture where we were specifically saying that the old race and gender rules didn't apply-- and then we realized that most of our characters were still turning out to be white males, which is when we said "alright" and consciously started working to change that. Bit of a shock, that-- that even though we're both female and considered ourselves POC-friendly (we're both white as well) we were still writing WM chars. Boo on that!
And yes, you do get variation once you put multiple women in. The head of state in this is a woman, her assistant/lover is a woman (and former courtesan), the head of the courtesan's guild is a woman (although there are many male courtesans too), the top professional athlete is a woman, et cetera, et cetera, and each one of those four women is very different from each other. It's such a delight to have women who aren't "womany"-- by which I mean that sense of disconnect you mention.
Not even in the media but sometimes in real life I hit this-- I was once dating a man, a perfectly nice and intelligent man, who, early on in our relationship, was very confused by me and constantly analyzing what I said. The reason? Because I generally meant what I said and wasn't playing "mind games." I didn't do coy, I didn't do 'I mean this but I'm saying this and waiting for you to figure it out so I can give you hell for getting it wrong', etc etc. This was something that had been routine with his last three girlfriends, and he just considered it something that went with women!
It's possibly mildly misogynistic of me to even have as a viewpoint, but that kind of woman? Pisses me off so much I'd much, much rather be a man, k thx.
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Date: 2008-11-03 06:46 pm (UTC)Yes and yes. The story where we're pursuing that balance is set 3000 years in the future, in a culture where we were specifically saying that the old race and gender rules didn't apply-- and then we realized that most of our characters were still turning out to be white males, which is when we said "alright" and consciously started working to change that. Bit of a shock, that-- that even though we're both female and considered ourselves POC-friendly (we're both white as well) we were still writing WM chars. Boo on that!
And yes, you do get variation once you put multiple women in. The head of state in this is a woman, her assistant/lover is a woman (and former courtesan), the head of the courtesan's guild is a woman (although there are many male courtesans too), the top professional athlete is a woman, et cetera, et cetera, and each one of those four women is very different from each other. It's such a delight to have women who aren't "womany"-- by which I mean that sense of disconnect you mention.
Not even in the media but sometimes in real life I hit this-- I was once dating a man, a perfectly nice and intelligent man, who, early on in our relationship, was very confused by me and constantly analyzing what I said. The reason? Because I generally meant what I said and wasn't playing "mind games." I didn't do coy, I didn't do 'I mean this but I'm saying this and waiting for you to figure it out so I can give you hell for getting it wrong', etc etc. This was something that had been routine with his last three girlfriends, and he just considered it something that went with women!
It's possibly mildly misogynistic of me to even have as a viewpoint, but that kind of woman? Pisses me off so much I'd much, much rather be a man, k thx.